ABC's Lateline supports the expected revved-up political campaign of anti-Catholic bigots

Nothing was more predictable on the eve of Pope Benedict's visit to Australia for World Youth Day than a well-aimed attack on Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Church by the likes of the Broken Rites group - through the agency of a supportive or compliant media, naturally.

I have, incidentally, no hesitation in providing the link to the Broken Rites website. This website does not bear scrutiny: it's a turgid flow of misrepresentation, wild unsupported allegation, statistics twisted to meet particular ends - a travesty of basic justice. Broken Rites is essentially a political organization devoted to the destruction of a body that is ideologically unacceptable. As much as they try to hide their political purpose behind the misery and sordidness of clerical sexual abuse the message inevitably seeps through.

Anti-Catholic groups who hide their purpose behind some front or another know that among the most easily manipulated media instruments for advancing their political campaign is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Indeed, it's likely there is a hushed collusion between some ABC people and a group like Broken Rites. Talking about hushed and dissembling people, the individuals behind Broken Rites are hardly eager to show a public face. This is all they say on their website about who is behind their activity:

Broken Rites is staffed by volunteers who are themselves survivors of church-related sexual abuse. We are therefore motivated to help other people – free of charge. Our executive committee includes professional practitioners with expertise in investigation and advocacy.

Who are these survivors and what were the circumstances? And who are the professionals? Why don't they put their names to their political activity? People who come to my website know who I am and what I stand for. In a following comment I will look more closely at the Broken Rites website and raise the question of why the media in general and the ABC in particular have not subjected these people to their penetrating investigative skills.

The boys of ABC's Lateline obviously thought they were on to something they could exploit when Anthony Jones approached them with his carefully rehearsed story of woe. The tendentious headline on the online report signals immediately where they were going:

Exclusive documents reveal church ignored abuse allegations

Church ignored abuse allegations? How does that stand up to the information they provided in their unashamedly partial report? We will see. Presenter Tony Jones opens with this:

As the Australian Catholic Church prepares to host the Pope for World Youth Day, Lateline can tonight reveal new evidence showing how its most senior figure, Cardinal George Pell, misled a man who complained of being abused by a Sydney priest.

One would have thought that clever Tony Jones, a responsible journalist, may have ventured to question the timing and significance of Anthony Jones's shocking revelations. But, no, that would detract from the terrific scoop, wouldn't it? The slavering crew at Lateline would also have taken a dim view if such a pertinent point were brought up. Most likely it didn't matter. The ABC's agenda is independent of their stories and those that bring them.

Now what about that word "misled". How does that go with the accusation that the Church "ignored abuse allegations"? How would you mislead someone about an allegation that was ignored? Not very careful, is it? Tony risks stumbling over his sword in the rush to the block. With this ominous build-up of the explosive "new evidence", Tony reveals what it is. The reader must brace himself for shock:

Lateline has documents that show George Pell wrote to the man telling him his sex assault allegation wasn't being upheld because the church had received no other complaints of sexual assault by the priest.

But on the very same day, the Archbishop signed a letter to another man, upholding his claim that the same priest had sexually assaulted him when he was a young altar boy. The new documents also show that Cardinal Pell ignored the recommendations of the church's own investigation.

Shocking stuff, isn't it? I ask the reader, after he has picked himself up from the ground, to reflect hard on what is actually being said here. Forget about Cardinal Pell's desk for the moment, and take any administrative desk "X". From administrative desk "X" two letters during a hectic day go out about the same subject. They go into the full glare of public scrutiny. The second letter contradicts vital information that is contained in the first letter. What is the most likely explanation for the contradiction?

If we act on the principle of Ockham's Razor and take the simple explanation without unnecessary assumptions rather than the more complicated explanation with gratuitous assumptions, we would think an administrative stuff-up was the culprit.

Tony Jones, if he is honest with himself in his private unobserved moments, would have to admit that anyone, especially those whose job is mostly managerial, is regularly subjected to this sort of administrative cock-up. Surely he would not be so rash as to assert that administrative cock-ups of this sort never came across or went from his ABC desk. No, such purity would be fantastic even for an ABC journalist.

Apart from the principle Ockham's Razor to support the likelihood of an administrative stuff-up as an explanation, there is also the question of credible action for a normally intelligent person. Now we know how inclined the intellectuals at the ABC are to scoff as the intelligence levels of anyone who does not fall in with them ideologically. They have a world-beater in this talent in the person of Philip Adams who has set worldwide benchmarks for hypocrisy and bigotry. But in the cold light of day, outside the invigorating intellectual atmosphere of the ABC, one has to admit that Cardinal Pell is a person well above average intellect with a breadth of knowledge that is at least at the same level as that of Tony Jones. Many of us are deluded enough to think that His Eminence ranks well above the average ABC journalist here, but I will suffice with just at the same level as Tony.

Would Tony Jones contemplate, if he were in Cardinal Pell's position, sending out two letters that were contradictory in a matter that the vultures continually circling the Cardinal would swoop on in an instant? I don't think so. Why would anyone in their right mind in Cardinal Pell's position purposely provide such richly stinking carrion for these ideological vultures to swell their already bloated bellies?

A third argument to support to administrative blunder thesis, is the character of the Cardinal. Of course, that's simply laughable to the anti-Catholic bigots in front of microphones and presiding over newspaper copy. Most fair minded people who know Cardinal Pell, both in Australia and overseas, know him to be person of outstanding character, a person who sticks to his undertakings. The Cardinal has established fixed protocols overseen by independent people to deal with allegations of sexual abuse against Catholic clergy. These protocols are open for review. His Eminence would be mad to deviate in any way from those protocols.

The principle of Ockham's Razor, stretching one's credulity or appealing to good character mean nothing to people who have a rigid agenda, whose purpose is to apply tactic regardless of the truth or standing of the person to achieve a political end. Enter Anthony Jones into the hallowed halls of the ABC. This is the victim the high-minded people of Lateline are acting as an agent for. That is to say, the victim of Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Church. Anthony Jones, reports Tony Jones, "says that George Pell destroyed his faith and damaged his life."

Once again let's get this straight. The allegation is that the one letter as outlined above by Tony Jones has destroyed Anthony Jones's faith, despite the eventual resolution of the issue both as regards the church and the processes of the law. My response is that only people without faith would be eager to swallow anything so ridiculous. Anthony Jones has little faith to be destroyed if can be destroyed so easily. Any Catholic who sticks to the unadulterated teaching of the Catholic Church will be subjected to continual ridicule and often ostracised in his work environment. Catholics have had forty years of unrelenting ridicule, nasty and misrepresentation of their beliefs from the ABC's Philip Adams, to name just one person who has earned his money building a legion of like-minded bigots.

Unlike my sixties generation contemporaries, I did not jettison my faith and, to make it doubly worse, I thought the radicals of the sixties were the biggest hypocrite-frauds I have ever come across. Anthony Jones does not know what it is to be under pressure because of adherence to the Catholic faith. But, really, the thing about being Catholic - living and thinking like a Catholic - is that you accept such trials as part of a spiritual proving. I doubt whether Anthony Jones knows what the inside of a Catholic church looks like, just like most ABC journalists.

As for letting the event of receiving a disagreeable letter damage his life then I can only regard Anthony Jones as the biggest sook. But let's get his full story. Conor Duffy and Tim Palmer are the ABC journalists who must take credit for this report. I ask the reader to pause and go to the video presentation on Lateline's web page: Anthony Jones's story of woe. Here is the transcript with Connor Duffy entering with tender sympathy and fellow-feeling into Anthony Jones's trial at the hands of the terrible Cardinal Pell:

CONNOR DUFFY, REPORTER: As a young man, Anthony Jones' life revolved around two things: the surf and his faith. From a family that had already produced a bishop, Anthony Jones too was drawn towards a life with the Church.

ANTHONY JONES, ABUSE VICTIM: I loved Catholicism, I loved the liturgy, I loved the music. I loved the pomp, the ceremony. I loved good liturgy. It spoke to my heart. I experienced God in that.

CONNOR DUFFY: At 28 as a young religious education coordinator, he came to meet Father Terence Goodall, a Sydney Priest. A social meeting in January 1982 ended with the two men coming to this pool for a swim. It was a night he spent a lifetime trying to forget.

ANTHONY JONES: The water wasn't that deep so I crouched down so that the water was up to my shoulders and then the next moment, hands come around from behind me, and a hand goes down in to the speedos that I had been loaned by Father Goodall, and he became to fondle my penis. He had his other arm around me so it was hard to move away.

CONNOR DUFFY: Anthony Jones did break away and swam to get out of the pool. With his clothes back at the presbytery however, Jones had no choice but to drive back there with Father Goodall. He says when they got back, the priest ambushed him while he was getting dressed.

ANTHONY JONES: I thought at the time that he wanted to apologise to me because my actions of moving away from him in the pool indicated to him that I did not consent to what he had done or what he did and that I did not approve of what had happened. So I sat on the bed. A few moments passed and he pushed my shoulder down and lifted my legs on the bed and within a flash he had taken the towel off me, he pulled his own towel off, and he had the full weight of his body upon my body and he was rubbing his erect penis up against mine, and then he placed his penis in between my legs and was rubbing his penis up against my anus and my scrotum. I couldn't believe that this was happening. I was speechless. I was in shock. I was frightened that this was happening to me.

CONNOR DUFFY: Anthony Jones says Father Goodall only let him up after the Priest had ejaculated. I quickly got dressed and he said to me, "Oh, I've been seeking a gay relationship on the quiet." And I said, "I'm not into this whatsoever." And I grabbed my wallet and just walked down the stairs. I felt so angry, and got into my car and I just felt like driving to Cronulla Beach and drowning myself. Then when I got home I stood under the shower for three hours washing my body...

.

Before I go any further let me make it clear that I do not dispute in essentials Anthony Jones's account of what happened with Fr Goodall. But what are we dealing with here? You could not call it child sexual abuse. Anthony Jones at 28-years-old is well beyond adolescence. We are dealing with an adult man. We have a case of an adult man with another adult man. Anthony Jones's behaviour, as he recounts it, is not the behaviour of an adult man. I can't imagine that many men of twenty-eight years would let Fr Goodall get away with what he was doing, unless... In fact, there is no way in the world that any twenty-eight-year-old that I have ever known would endure Fr Goodall's behaviour without flailing fists, unless...

It did not even have to get that far. Why didn't Jones simply get out of the pool at the first approach and tell Fr Goodall to find his own way home? Was he such a baby at twenty-eight years that he could not think that out for himself? Like many nineteen-year-olds, way back in the sixties, I was once told by a homosexual in a pub what he would like to do to me. I was shocked at first. But my clear-headed response was to tell my friends I was going. We all left that bar together. It's not difficult.

Why didn't these points occur to Connor Duffy? Connor Duffy looks like a man in his late twenties or early thirties. I doubt whether Fr Goodall would have had his way with Connor. Be honest, Connor. When Fr Goodall went to court The Age reported he

pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and was sentenced until the court rises, effectively for four seconds. Goodall had been charged with indecent assault and attempted buggery. He pleaded guilty only to indecent assault.

It's clear how serious the judge regarded Anthony Jones's case against Fr Goodall, which is resounding support for the way I see it. Thrashing with feather would have been a heavier sentence.

A clear purpose emerges from Jones's story of woe and Connor Duffy's manipulative reporting, a purpose that is supported by the Lateline production staff using the usual visual props of rosary beads, churches, Catholic clergy and the wistful walks around parks and pools, and so on. The purpose is political. It is spelt out in Anthony Jones's conclusion to his story, a story that was tutored and well rehearsed:

[The letter] destroyed my faith. Ripped it to pieces. I now hate Catholicism because of what Cardinal Pell has done to me. More so than what Father Goodall did to me.

It is just not credible that a letter with erroneous information, which was corrected in the short term, could destroy and rip apart one's faith. It is even less credible that such a letter could be more damaging than the assault to which Jones surrendered without resistance. Anthony Jones's story and ABC Lateline's treatment of it only make sense in the context of a political purpose. That purpose is to deliver as much harm to Cardinal Pell as possible, and through him the Catholic Church. The enmity of particular people and particular groups towards the Cardinal is well-known amongst faithful Catholics and we do not expect virulent groups like Broken Rites to let up. We do not expect the ABC to moderate their anti-Catholic bigotry.

Anthony Jones's allegation went through the process established by the protocols. At every point in his report Connor Duffy tries to make out that the Church and Cardinal Pell resisted the process. If anyone is telling lies in this whole affair, then it's Connor Duffy with his whoppers. We could also say that Tony Jones opened with a whopper. On their own account there is no evidence that the Catholic Church ignored Anthony Jones's allegations or tried to cover it up. The contrary is the case.

The following is from Melbourne's Herald Sun report:

...Cardinal Pell, in response to the Lateline program, denied he had misled Mr Jones.

"The letter to Mr Jones was badly worded and a mistake - an attempt to inform him there was no other allegation of rape," Cardinal Pell said.

"However, I signed both letters of February 2003 mentioned in the ABC's Lateline program, and any fault in the drafting was mine.

"In a subsequent letter soon after the February 2003 letter, I expressed my sorrow at what Mr Jones had suffered and offered to meet him.

"There was no attempt to mislead him. I apologise for the confusion caused to Mr Jones."

The allegations come just days before the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI - and an expected 200,000 pilgrims - in Sydney for World Youth Day.

There is a lot more to be said about this Lateline attack on Cardinal Pell. Not least is the question of who Anthony Jones is. His performance is remarkably similar to that of David Ridsdale who provided the Nine Network's 60 Minutes with ammunition to launch a far more violent attack on the Cardinal. I have reliable evidence that David Ridsdale was at the time living in London in a homosexual relationship and was connected with homosexual activists.

comments: gerardwilson01@optusnet.com.au